Mass shootings again

Pkiernan wrote: »

Honestly, how come mass shootings in Africa get basically 1 report in the news, but in so called developed nations they get weeks of international outrage?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-47680836

I don't know why people keep asking this question ?

We have become immune to mass slaughters in Africa down through the years.
There were civil wars raging for decades (Angola, Ehtiopia, Mozambique), tin pot dictatorships with rebellions and changes of leadership (Zaire/Congo), failed states lurching along with warlords running things (Somalia, Liberia, now Libya), proxy wars by superpowers (Angola, Ethiopia), mass ethnic clensing (Rwanda, Sudan, now Nigeria).

Occasionally some things are so bad or specifically involve Westerners that they really hit some in the Western world like the 1984/1985 famine in Ethiopia, mass genocide in Rwanda, mass kidnapping of school girls by muslim extremists in Nigeria, attack on US ships in African ports or attack on shopping centre (with Westerners involved), or attack on US special forces in Mogadishu (the movie helped).

But the rest is just seen as noise.
Likewise with a lot of stuff in Middle East.

Basically life is often dirt cheap and it is common occurrence.

Mass slaughters, terrorist attacks in Europe is not commonplace or at least it wasn't up till the last decade.
Yes we all know about Northern Ireland, Basque country, etc but people were not getting run over on the streets of Berlin, Stockholm, Nice, London.
Journalists weren't being attacked at their place of work.
Priests were not being slaughtered in their churches.

We are part of Europe and have a connection with these countries.
We go on holidays or breaks there, we have friends or family working there.
Mass slaughters, terrorist attacks in Australia, New Zealand, Canada are new and again we have a connection to these places.

I don't think it is just the colour of the skin as Wibbs remarked.
It is familiarity.

Now I didn't mention the US because we have also become kinda immune to the mass slaughter over there as well.
Yes we are surprised and very interested in terrorist attacks such as Orlando and of course 911, but the weekly mass shootings have if anything become a thing of normality so we just shrug our shoulders as the usual figures come out to tell us how more weapons are the answer and not the problem.

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

Also quite surprising is that the almost systematic killing of Christians by extremist Muslims in African and other countries like Syria and Iraq gets no real media traction, yet we are familiar with the plight of other ethnic/ religious minorities from those areas, eg. Yazidis. Of course we should be familiar with them, but it's hard to understand how the equally horrific plight of Christians doesn't get the same coverage or response. You'd think that a strong point of reference that the western world identifies with would get at least equal highlighting as an oppressed minority.

This is another side to what is now happening particularly in western media.
There is a mindset that the West, and almost by extension christianity, have to be ashamed for past sins by western powers and thus we are at fault and almost deserve it.

For some unknown reason christian values and christians can be lambasted for their beliefs and attitudes, but one particular other religion is almost given a free pass for its even more backward attitudes and behaviour.

Hell around here one of the go to whataboutery tactics is to drag up right wing christians in Uganda as a counter balance to ISIS, al nusra, al qeada, al-shabaab, taliban, etc.

And we will be lectured how they have attacked non christians in Uganda, but the same posters remain totally quiet about attacks on Christians in Nigeria, Central African Republic, Egypt, Kenya.
It is believe over 5,000 christians have been murdered in Nigeria, but not a peep out of Western media decrying the injustice.

WE hear about all the poor migrants dying crossing the med, a hue chunk of whom are muslim, but we don't get that much coverage of the christians fooked out of a boat because they were christian.

I guess some minorities are more deserving of coverage.

Boggles wrote: »

What's happening in Nigeria for some years now is far more nuanced than thehappychristian.com or Breitbart trying to push some warped narrative that dirty muslims are slaughtering Christians because they are dirty Muslims.

Do you know how I know that, I read about in the Western Media, The story the OP is referencing came from the BBC, you quoted the link.

Pretty good explanation of what is happening in Nigeria and how some lunatics are trying to spin it for the usual loon gain. Absolute Pond Scum.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nigeria-christians-muslims/

Ah yes the fulani which have a "reason" for their slaughters, but I can't help but notice you totally failed to mention Boko Haram ???

Where is your explanation for their atrocities ?
Or hasn't snopes managed to get any pages on the deeds misappropriated to them ?

And I would want to ask about this - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/foreign-secretary-announces-global-review-into-persecution-of-christians ; its dated last December, so way before Christchurch.
Anyone knows of any outcome from such review ?

Seems pretty massive if International Society for Human Rights has found that Christians are the victims of 80% of all acts of religious discrimination.

Whatever fits the narrative.

A combination of the remoteness and slower movement of information in a 24 hour news cycle, and the fact that large parts of Africa are in constant conflict, if europe was at war as it has been many many times in history the deaths of 130 people wouldn't be seen as the tragedy it was when say those terrorists butchered those people in the Bataclan theatre